Resurrection Ministry of John G. Lake

www.standsure.net

REALITY

By Dr. John Graham Lake

When I read the second chapter of the wonderful book of Hebrews, there is a thrill that goes down through my soul, and I would to God that the real spiritual truths of it could forever be established in the minds of men.

I once listened to an imminent divine preaching from the text, “What is man?” When the preacher got through I had a feeling that he was a kind of whipped cur with his tail between his legs, sneaking to throw himself into the lake, and saying, “Here goes nothing.” I said, “He had never caught the fire of the thing Jesus is endeavoring to teach through the apostle: That man was the crowning creation of God; that God endowed him with a nature and qualities that, by the grace of God, can express more of God than any other of God’s creations; that God purposed by the Holy Spirit to make the salvation of Jesus Christ so real in the nature of man the “He that sanctifieth (Jesus Christ) and they that are sanctified” through His grace are both of one nature, of one substance, of one character. One in life, one in righteousness of His death and one in the consequent dominion that came because of His resurrection and glory!

“For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” (Hebrews 2:11)

We are the brethren of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the elder brother and we are the younger members of the family of the same Father, begotten by the same Spirit, energized by the same divine life of God, qualified through the Holy Ghost to perform the same blessed ministry!

“He took not on Him the nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham.”

How I wish I could write these things in your soul and brand them in your conscience.

When the purpose of God in the salvation of man first dawned upon my soul, that is, when the greatness of it dawned upon my soul, I was changed. For experientially, I knew God as freedom from sin, I knew the power of the Christ within my own heart to keep me above the power of temptation and to help me live a godly life. But when I say to you that when I knew the purpose of God and the greatness of His salvation, life became for me a grand thing!

When, by the study of His Word and the revelation of His Spirit, it became a fact in my soul that God’s purpose was no less in me than it was in the Lord Jesus, and is no less in you and I as younger brethren than it was in Jesus Christ, our elder brother, then I saw the purpose that God had in mind for the human race. I saw the greatness of Jesus’ desire. That desire that was so intense that is caused Him as King of Glory to lay down all that glory possessed for Him, and come to earth to be born as a man, to join hands with our humanity, and by His grace lift us in consciousness and life to the same level that He Himself enjoyed. Christ became a new factor in my soul. Such a vision of His purpose thrilled my being that I could understand then how it was that Jesus, as He approached man and his needs, began at the very bottom, call mankind to Him, and by His loving touch and the power of the Spirit through His Word, destroyed the sickness and sin that bound them and set them free in both body and soul, lifted them onto union and communion with Himself and God the Father.

Yea, bless God, by the Holy Spirit indwelling the souls of men, Christ purposed to bestow on mankind the very conditions of His own life and being, and to give to man through the gifts of the Spirit and the Gift of the Spirit, the same blessed ministry to the world that He Himself had enjoyed and exercised. The old song that we used to sing became new to my heart. It’s melody runs through my soul:

“Salvation,

O the joyful sound,

In a believer’s ear,

It soothes our worries,

heals our wounds

And drives away our fears.”

And lots more, bless God.

I could then understand what was in Charles Wesley’s heart when he wrote his famous hymn, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”, and penned it’s climax, that marvelous verse:

“Thou, 0 Christ, art all I want,

More that all in Thee I find:

Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,

Heal the sick and lead the blind.

Just and holy is Thy name;

I am all unrighteousness,

Vile and full of sin I am,

Thou art full of truth and grace.”

(This was not the last verse, but the third)

The same thing was in the spirit of Isaiah, when in the beautiful thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, his exultant soul broke forth in the shout of praise, “He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing.”

I could understand then the thrill that must have moved David, when he sang the lO3rd Psalm. “Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgiveth all thine in iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases.”

The vision that has called forth the shouts of praise from the souls of men in all ages, is the same vision that stirs your heart and mine today. The vision of the divine reality of the salvation of Jesus Christ by which the greatness of God’s purpose in Him is revealed to mankind by the Spirit of the Living One, transformed and lifted and unified with the living Christ through the Holy Ghost, so that all the parts and energies and functions of the nature of Jesus Christ are revealed through man, unto the salvation of the world. Bless God.

The vision of God’s relation to man and man’s relation to God is changing the character of Christianity, from a groveling something, weeping and wailing its way in tears, to the kingly recognition of union and communion with the living Son of God. Yea, bless God, to the recognition of the real fact that the Word of God so vividly portrayed in the lesson I read. That “in the bringing of many sons into the world” not one son in the world, but “in the bringing of many sons into the world,” it became sin to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering! Blessed be God.

I am glad, bless God, that the Scriptures have dignified us with that marvelous title of “Sons of God”. I am glad there is such a relation as a “Son of God” and that by His grace the cleansed soul, cleansed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, filled and energized by His own Kingly Spirit, that he too, by the grace of God, has become God’s King, God’s gentleman, in deed and in truth.

The Spirit of the Lord says within my soul, that the kingly nature of the Son of God is purposed to be revealed in the nature of every man, that Christ’s kingliness may be prevalent in all the world and govern the heart of man, even as it governs the heart of those who know Him and have entered into His glory.

(A young man called up from the audience) I listened to this young man’s testimony on Friday night with a thrill in my soul. I want him to tell you what God had done in him and for him.

Testimony:

“I do not know whether I can tell it all or not. I am sure there is a good deal I cannot tell. When I was a lad of about 14 years old I was forced into the mines to work, and I worked a great deal in the water, which brought on rheumatism. I was crippled up for years in my younger days, and gradually grew worse. I could walk around, but you could hardly notice where I was afflicted. It was in the hips and back.

A great many physicians said there was no relief for me. When I came down here to Spokane and was laboring on anything I could not stoop down. When I would drop my pick or shovel I would have to pick it up with my feet and reach for it with my hands.

I came to this meeting last fall, and with one prayer by Mr. Lake I was healed in thirty minutes of rheumatism, which had been a constant torture to me for years.

Later on I contracted tuberculosis, and was examined by the county physician, Stutz, who advised me that the best thing to do was to go to Edgecliff. Also other physicians said I was very bad, and they did not think I could live more than six or eight months, unless I went out there right away.

I took the same thing for it. I went to the healing rooms for prayer, also Brother Peterson prayed for me, and three weeks later I went to Dr. Stutz and he could not find a trace of it. I have gained 11 pounds, and I never felt better in my life.”

That is a simple story isn’t it? That story is a revealing of the question that has probably caused more debate in Christian life than almost any other, and of which the world has little understanding. That is, the Spirit of God is a living force that takes possession of the nature of man and works in man the will of God, and the will of God is ever to make man like Himself. Blessed be His precious Name!

It would be a strange Word indeed, and a strange salvation if Jesus was not able to produce from the whole race one man in His own image, in His own likeness and of His own character. We would think that salvation was weak, would we not?

If the world were nothing but cripples, as it largely is, soul cripples, physical cripples, mental cripples everywhere, then I want to know what kind of a conception the world has received of the divinity of Jesus Christ, of the Power of His salvation? Is there no hope? Is there no way out of the difficulty? Is there no force that can lift the soul of man into union with God, so that once again the life of God thrills in his members?

Our purpose, by the grace of God, is to reveal to the world what is the real truth and purpose and power of the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ! My soul rejoices every time I see a man set free, for I say within my heart, “There is one more witness to the divine fact that the Christ of God is a living power, taking possession of the nature of man and transforming man’s being into His own image.”

The mere fact of our brother’s deliverance from suffering and inability to help himself, and a possible premature death, is a very small matter in itself, in comparison with the wonder it reveals to us. The revelation of the power of God at the command of man, to be applied to the destruction of evil, whether spiritual or physical, mental or psychological, shows us Christ’s purpose and desire to bring man by the grace of God once more into his heavenly estate, where he recognizes himself a son of God. Blessed be His Name!

Years ago I found myself, like my brother but even more crippled than he. When my legs drew out of shape and my body became distorted by the common curse of rheumatism, my pastor said, “Brother you are glorifying God”, and my church said, “Brother, be patient and endure it. Let the sweetness of the Lord possess your Soul.” And I was good enough to believe it for a long time, until one day I discovered that it was not the will of God at all, but the will of the dirty crooked legged devil that wanted to make me like himself. And then, bless God, everything was changed and I laid down everything and went to Chicago to the only place where I knew then that a man could get healed. I went to John Alexander Dowie’s Divine Healing Home at l2th and Michigan Streets, and an old gray-haired man came and laid his hands on me and the power of God went through my being and made my leg straight, and I went out and walked on the street like a Christian.

Do you know when my legs straightened out it taught me the beginning of one of the deepest lessons that ever came to my life. It taught me that God did not appreciate a man with crooked legs, any more that He does with a crooked soul. I saw the abundant power of the gospel of salvation, and that it was placed at the disposal of man to remove the unchristlikeness of his life. And if it was unchristlikeness in the body, we could get rid of the curse by coming to God and being made whole. For there is just as much unchristlikeness in men’s bodies as in men’s souls. That which is in the inner life will also be revealed in the outer life. That which is a fact in the mental and psychological will become a fact in the physical also. And, bless God, that which is the divine fact of all facts, that the spirit of man and the Spirit of God are of one substance and one nature, and his mind and body take of the spiritual power imparted, until it too becomes Christlike. Blessed be His holy name!

The Spirit of the Lord speaks within my soul and says:

“Within the breast of every man is the divine image of God (living God), in whose image and likeness he was made. Sin is a perversion, and sickness an impostor, and the grace and power of God through the Holy Ghost delivers man from all bondage of darkness, and man in all his nature rises into union and communion with God and becomes one with Him in the truest sense. One in the thoughts of God, one in the aspirations of God, one in the Spirit of Jesus Christ as the ail of man, and man then gives himself, and that ail also, lifting man, by the grace of God, to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” Blessed be His holy name!

“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,

Like the wideness of the sea;

There’s a kindness in His Justice,

Which is more than liberty.

But, we make His love too narrow

By false limits of our own,

And we magnify His strictness

With a zeal He will not own.

There is welcome for the sinner,

And more graces for the good;

There is mercy with His justice;

There is healing in His blood.

For the love of God is broader

Than the measure of man’s mind;

And the heart of the Eternal

Is most wonderful and kind;

If our lives were but more simple,

We should take Him at His word;

And our lives would be all sunshine

In the sweetness of our Lord.”

So the divine realities remain. The reality of God a living power. The divine assistance. The heavenly nature known to every man who enters, by the Spirit, through the door who is Christ Jesus, into a living experience. The man who doubts is the man on the outside. The man on the inside has no questions to settle, that is, those questions that do not comprehend God, as does the soul that has never been in contact with His life and His power. But Christ invites mankind to enter with Him into the divine knowledge and heavenly union that makes the spirit of man and the Spirit of God to be one in deed and in truth. Bless God!

Man is the most divine reality that God has given in His great creation. Man in the image of God, man renewed by the life of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, revealing and giving forth by the living Spirit, transformed even as himself has been transformed. Bless be His name!

God has made us, in the truest and highest sense, co-partners and co-laborers with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He has not withheld one possibility that was manifested in Jesus from any man, but on the contrary, invites mankind to come forth in the dignity and power of sons of God, and to that Christ, and in Christ, join in the mighty wonder of the salvation of the world over sin and sickness, and the power of death and darkness and hell. Bless God!

Salvation of my heart is Christ’s glorious reality. Under a tree, away back in Canada one night, I knelt and poured out my heart to God and asked Him by grace to take possession of my life and nature and make me a Christian man, and let me know the power of His salvation. And Christ was born in my soul. Such a joy of God possessed my heart that the leaves of the trees seemed to dance for months following, and the birds sang a new song and the angels of God witnessed of the glory of heaven in my own heart. Blessed be His name!

Salvation is a progressive condition. The difficulty with the church has been that men were induced to confess their sins to Christ and acknowledge Him as a Lord, and there they stopped, there they petrified, there they withered, there they died, dry rotted. I believe that in these phrases I have expressed the real thing that has taken place in 85% of professing Christians in the world. Oh, bless God, we never saw Christ’s intention. The day away back there, when the glory light of God first shone into my soul, was a glorious day, the best I had ever known to that moment. But, beloved, it would be a sorrowful thing in my life if I was compelled to look back to that day as the best. No, bless God, there were better days than that. There were days when the Lord God took me into His confidence and revealed His nature and revealed His purpose, and revealed His love and revealed His nature and revealed His ministry. Yea, bless God, there came a day when God once more in His loving mercy endowed me with the Spirit of God, to be and perform the things that He had planted in my soul and had revealed in my soul and had revealed in His own blessed Word and life. I invite you to this life of divine reality. I invite you to enter into the Lord Jesus.

I invite you to enter into His nature that you may know Him, for not man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. It is through the revelation of the Spirit of Christ in the soul of man that he is privileged to know Jesus as the Lord. Blessed be to God. We may know Him as an historic character, we may know Him as the ideal man, we may know him as the Christ and Savior, but we do not know Him as the living God who imparts His own nature and life and power to use, until we know Him, as the Scripture says, in the Holy Ghost. Bless God!

He who has lived and felt that religious life was a dream, or myth, or an abstract something that was hard to lay your hands on, an intangible condition, has been mistaken. I bless God that in the bosom of the Living One is the divine realities of God, filling and thrilling the soul of Christ Himself, filling and thrilling the soul of every recipient of the life of the Lord Jesus.

And the Spirit of the Lord once more speaks within my heart and says that, “The joys of God and the glories of heaven and the understanding of angelic existence and being are only known to him who is privileged, in consciousness, to enter that life and realm. That God by His grace has purposed that man in his nature and consciousness shall live in union and communion with our Father God, and with the Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, the innumerable company of angels, and the presence of just men made perfect, and we shall know the power and wonder of the Blood of Jesus that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”

And the Spirit of the Lord speaks, yet again, and says that, “As Jesus was the prophet of all prophets, because of the completeness of the union of His nature with God, that man in turn becomes the prophet of prophets as his spirit assimilates with the Spirit of Him, the divine One; that man becomes the lover of all lovers, even as Jesus Christ was the lover of all men, thrilling men with the intensity of His affection in the union of spirit with Himself, binding them by the love of His nature as the bond-slaves of Christ forever.”

So, the Christian draws to himself the love of men, not because he lavishly desires it, but because of the fact that he obeys Christ’s divine law: “Give and it shall be given unto you, full measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, so shall men give into your bosom.” Blessed be God!

THE RESURRECTION

By: Dr. John G. Lake

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the greatest event in the human history, without any doubt. I believe that every sane man, every man who is accustomed to think through on the great problems of life, wants to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. I cannot believe that any man who is accustomed to weigh evidence can be happy as a skeptic.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ furnishes a solution of the human problem. By the human problem I mean man’s being here. We may say that what we will, the fact that man is tremendous. His ultimate end, the reason for His being, reaches up and grips our minds and holds us in deadly embrace. And if Jesus is not the Son of God there is no solution of the human problem. It is an enigma.

If Jesus rose from the dead the human problem is solved. We understand it. It solves the sin problem and that is the paramount problem. The universal man is conscious of the guilt of sin. I know by the altars that are built that cover the earth, by its universal priesthood. Thirty million priests in India. Why? Because India with the rest of mankind is conscious of guilt. Man’s consciousness of guilt has made him formulate religions.

These are weighty matters I am bringing you tonight, gentlemen. These are the great basic problems of life. This is the solution of the sin problem. No religion among the religions of the world has ever offered a solution for the sin problem. Jesus Christ alone has brought the solution.

There is another problem that Jesus answers. Universal man has craved union with God. He has not only wanted to get rid of the sin problem and the sin burden and the sin guilt, but he wanted to be able to partake of the life and nature of God.

Man became a blood drinker. We call them cannibals. He became a blood drinker because he believed that if he would drink the blood of the victims who lay on his altar, he would partake of the God-nature and never die. You can see the Lord’s table behind that, can’t you?

The out-reaching of man after God are among the saddest of all the facts of human life. Man is God-hungry. Jesus is the solution of that problem. Through Jesus Christ we become partakers of the divine nature.

If Jesus arose from the dead, the redemption is a fact. If Jesus arose from the dead, man can go the heaven. At first that may not seem much to you. But you know, men, whether you have thought it through or not, the universal man believes in the life beyond the grave. Human religion has never made an adequate conception or hope.

What do I mean by human religion? The religions of India: Hinduism, Brahmanism, Buddhism. All are human religions. Christian Science is a human religion purely based upon philosophy. The very first step is to destroy the personal God, the conviction and concept of a personal God. I want to say with all candor that I believe that the men and women who have written against Christian Science, New Thought and Unity have made the greatest mistake that was ever made in the world of apologetic. They have ridiculed it, but they have missed the crux of the matter.

Christian Science is built upon atheism. The communism of Russia has been atheistic. Christian Science as a religion is atheistic. The very first step is the destruction of the personal God. God is a person. They destroy that utterly, and when they destroy that, aren’t they atheists? If some man would write a book proving that Christian Science is atheism, it would destroy Christian Science in a great measure.

I am going to carry you through some facts that I want to study with me tonight. If you are going to have a bonafide resurrection, it is necessary that you have an absolute death. You cannot have a genuine resurrection without a genuine death. I remember that Mr. Anderson, who was a disciple of Mr. Ingersol, wrote a book and that I found one day on the desk in one of my students rooms. In it Mr. Anderson make this assertion, that Jesus did not die, that He was in a state of coma. I want to refute it.

Turn to the nineteenth chapter of John. First, the Jewish Sanhedrin accepted the verdict of the Roman government that Jesus was dead. The Roman government pronounced Jesus dead. The Jewish Sanhedrin that had caused the death of Jesus accepted the verdict of the Roman government. But I want to give you something else.

John 19:31- Jesus is on the cross: “The Jews therefore; because it was the preparation that the bodies should not remain upon the cross in the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath day was an high day), besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.”

It was customary when they wanted death to come quickly to a crucified man that they would break his legs. The jar upon the nervous system would act upon the heart so that they would die suddenly.

“Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and for with came there out blood and water.”

Let us get the picture clearly. Jesus is hanging on that cross. He had been there on the cross since three in the afternoon. It is now almost sunset. The Roman soldiers come, and the two men who were crucified with Jesus are not dead. They are hanging there moaning, and the soldiers break their legs. Death comes mercifully. One of the soldiers comes to Jesus, and his head is hanging forward. The body is cold and stiffened, and the soldier stands there and looks up at Him and then takes his spear and pierces the left side, (not the right side that all the artists paint). Then he lifts on it. That spear head that is 4 to 6 inches wide, sharp as a razor, penetrated the side of Jesus; it goes up into the body, pierces the sack that holds the heart, and the miracle happens. Water flows out, and from that wide wound, 4 to 6 inches across, rolls great clots of coagulated blood. What happened? Jesus dies of a ruptured heart. That last cry was the death agony cry. His heart had ruptured, and when it ruptured the blood came pouring in from every part of the body to the heart and filled it; and as the body began to grow cold, this blood gathered there separated. The red corpuscles came to the top. The white serum settled to the bottom, and then when that soldier pierced the body and reached the heart sack, the water poured out first, and that is what John saw; then the blood.

Jesus was dead. His heart had been ruptured. The prophesy of the 22nd Psalm had been fulfilled. It was written a thousand years before Jesus died, and it is the most graphic picture ever written. I want you to note now, that Jesus was dead.

Read the last part of this chapter beginning with verse 38: “And after this Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus. And there came also Nicodemus, which at first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. Then they took the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.”

What was the custom of the Jews? The wealthy Jews followed the processes that they had learned in Egypt, and all the wealthier Jews had slaves that had learned the art of embalming the human body. It was not the total process.

So they took the body of Jesus from the cross. Joseph of Arimathea was wealthy. Nicodemus was wealthy. And they washed that precious body. Then they took the linen cloth and they tore it up into strips one a half to two inches wide, and they took this sticky substance, a hundred pounds weight, and they smeared that cloth as you would a salve. Then they took a toe and wrapped it. Then the foot, then the leg, then the fingers, and hands, and arms. Then the body was wrapped round and round until they used one hundred pounds of that sticky substance. And they used lined cloth enough to use one hundred pounds. Jesus weighed likely 200 pounds before His crucifixion. He must have been a perfect man, six feet, broad of shoulders, deep chest. He was God’s crown of creation the Master man, and He stood a king and peer among men.

If He weighed 200 pounds, he must have shrunk twenty pounds at the crucifixion; He would be one hundred and eighty pounds plus one hundred pounds. Jesus body would weigh two hundred and eighty to three hundred pounds. The body was hermetically sealed. Across the chest it must have been three inches thick, perhaps more. One hundred pounds smeared like that over the body would be over one inch thick.

The entire body was covered except the face. That was left for loving hands to embalm, and the women came down to finish the embalming. If Jesus had not died of a ruptured heart, and had not died of the spear thrust, after the body had been covered as I have indicated by that substance, hermetically sealed, so no air could get at it, He would not have lived four hours. I want you to know that Jesus was dead. Rome pronounced him dead. The Sanhedrin pronounced Him dead. The spear had found a ruptured heart. Blood and water had flowed out of it. He is now hermetically sealed and put in a tomb, and that tomb is as dry as it is around Los Angeles in the summer time. And that body put in that place, it would only take a little while until the grave clothes would harden. You know that cloth would shrink more or less and tighten the body.

Jesus is dead, in Joseph’s tomb, and his body is hermetically sealed, and just that little place around the face is uncovered.

Turn with me now to the twentieth chapter of John. Do you know anything about the value of narrative evidence before a jury or judge? Suppose a man has been killed down here on the street in a brawl, and the trial has come. Here is the value of narrative evidence. The trial goes on, and finally a little news boy goes on the witness stand. He is fearless in the presence of the judge. He knew the judge. He knew the lawyers. He had sold them papers. He stands there unabashed in the presence of the judge, and presently the prosecuting attorney says, “Tell us what you saw.” And in the vernacular of the street he begins to tell. He says, “I saw that guy over there and the man that was killed quarreling. Mickey and I were shooting craps, and we heard the scrap and we saw that fellow there, judge. I saw him pull out a knife and stab and then run.”

What do they do with that kind of evidence? That is narrative evidence. Boy describes it exactly as he saw it. The judge sits and listens, the jury sits and listens, and the court draws out of that child the whole picture. You cannot bring any kind of rebuttal. That boy’s story has been the evidence. The boy saw it. That settles it; he saw it.

Here is narrative evidence. Here is the type of evidence that has been overlooked by people trying to prove the deity of Jesus:

“The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulcher, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulcher. Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulcher, and we know not where they have laid Him.” Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulcher, So they ran together, and the other disciple did out run Peter and came first to the sepulcher. And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in. Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulcher and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about His head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself. Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulcher, and he saw, and believed.” -- John 20:1-8

Now what was it John saw that made him believe in the resurrection? “For as yet they knew not the scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.” Not one of the disciples believed that Jesus was going to rise from the dead. And after He arose from the dead they doubted it, and Jesus upbraided them for their unbelief.

Now what was it that made John believe? Let us go back and look at the story.

Mary and the other women came down to finish the embalming of Jesus. Three days had gone by, and before the face lost its beauty to them, they were going to cover it like the rest of the body. A napkin had been lying on the face. But when Mary arrived she found someone had been there and opened the sepulcher. She did not stop to look in. Filled with anger and indignation, for to the Jew the dead is sacred, she starts back to the city to tell Peter and John. Down through the city she runs, bursts into the room where they were, and says, “They have taken away the body of the Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” Then Peter, who had gone through hell for three days and three nights because he had denied Jesus in the face of the Sanhedrin, said, “John, let’s go.” Peter is large and heavy of body, and they run and John out runs him, and he comes to the sepulcher hewn out, and a big stone had been rolled against it and sealed, but the stone is away now. And John drops on his knees and looks in. John has in him that refinement that you can feel through his writings.

But when Peter comes, he is a coarser type. He ducks his head and goes into the sepulcher. The John reverently follows him. John saw something that made him believe. When God revealed this thing to me, He revealed it to a skeptic. I had been preaching for years, but in my secret heart I had questions about the resurrection of Jesus. Come now, we will step inside the sepulcher. If John, when he went in, had seen that someone had come and ripped down that thing, he would not have believed. If John had seen some wild animal had torn those grave clothes to shreds, would he have believed? No! Well, had John gone in and had seen the grave clothes intact and that Jesus had come out of that cocoon with-out destroying the rest of it, what would John have done? What would you have done? You would have believed.

I want to tell you what I did when I saw that empty cocoon, and I saw that the broad shoulders of Jesus had come out of that aperture for His face, that had hardened like a board. I slipped off my chair on to my knees, and I said what Thomas said, “My Lord and my God!” I knew Jesus had risen from the dead. I submit this to you. This is perfectly in harmony with Jewish customs of burying. It is within reason.

A Josephus tells us there were more than a million visitors in Jerusalem. It was on of the cycle years when the Jews came from all over the world to make their sacrifices. Outside the city, booths were built. Jews who were commercial travelers had come to their old home in Jerusalem. There was one thing that filled the very air; the story of Jesus. Thousands, ten thousands, had gone out and had seen the dead body of Jesus hanging on the cross. He was crucified early in the morning, and the city was shaken to the foundation. Everybody was talking about it.

And when Peter and John came down over the hillside to the cemetery where Jesus was buried, what do you think they did? What do you think impulsive, warm hearted Peter did? Did he keep it quiet? Peter rushing down to the first man he met, what do you suppose he said? What do you suppose John said? I know what you would say. “He is risen.” You would not have to say, “Jesus is risen.”

In an hour’s time the whole city of Jerusalem was stirred to its foundations. It stirred under the impulse of the new miracle. What did they do? Do you suppose they stood and talked, or do you think they made a rush for the sepulcher? You can see them going. If it had been in Portland, a hundred thousand people would have visited it that day. A hundred thousand Jews visited that hillside and smote their breast and tore their hair, and they went back to tell it. All that day the empty cocoon preached and told the story that Jesus had risen from the dead. It went on day after day and week after week until forty-nine days, less three. For forty-seven days the clothes on the hillside preached, and countless thousands of men were stirred and shaken to the foundation.

And then after that forty days, John says, “I saw Him!” Peter says I saw Him”, and 500 men followed Him to Olivet and saw Him ascend. What do you suppose the 500 men told the multitude of visitors? There was no other subject talked about. That goes without arguing.

Then fifty days later another staggering thing happened. Early in the morning they heard the rushing mighty wind, like a thousand airplanes over the town. God had planned the drama.

One hundred and twenty men and women in the great square filled with people, and they heard those men and women speaking in tongues and glorifying God, telling of the resurrection of Jesus. Every man and woman hears in his own language. Every man hears the first message of Jesus in his own tongue and from the lips of Galilean fisherman. Some laugh, but others were serious. It was the climax that for fifty days had rocked Jerusalem and staggered the Jewish nation.

Peter then stands forth. In the presence of whom? The Sanhedrin, the Senate, and the elders of Israel. Who is Peter? He is a humble fisherman. He is an untutored man. He has the same reverence for the high priest that the Roman Catholics have for the Pope. The Sanhedrin was sacred to him. He bowed before it. He feared it. The High Priest was sacred to him.

Yet, Peter stands out there in the presence of the Sanhedrin, and he indicts first the Roman Governor as having murdered the Son of God. Second, he indicts the Sanhedrin, then the Senate and the priesthood as murderers of the Son of God. His indictment is the most severe, the most amazing ever uttered.

Peter speaks only about 25 or 30 minutes, not longer than that, and what happens? Three thousand Jews broke with Judaism and accepted Jesus Christ of Nazareth as the Son of God and were baptized.

Where did he preach that sermon? Within the very shadow of that cross, within ten or twelve minutes of where Jesus hung stark naked one day, crowned with thorns as an outcast. And three thousand Jews broke with Judaism. And every Jew who accepted Jesus Christ, indicted the Sanhedrin, the Senate, and the Roman government with the murder of Jesus.

This was the most dramatic thing that ever happened in history. There is nothing like it. Why say, if that thing was not true, all Annas or Caiaphas had to do was to stop it raise his hand and say, “Gentlemen, we know where the body of Jesus is, it has never raised.” The Sanhedrin could have wiped out the whole thing in one day, but they dared not to move, until finally two thousand more Jews accepted Christ Jesus. In the next two or three days five thousand and a large company of the priesthood swung into line.

They had Peter and John arrested because they healed a man. I want to read to you from Acts 4:6:

“And Annas the high priest was there and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest.”

This was the same crowd that crucified Jesus. And Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them:

“Ye rulers of the people, and elders, if we this day are examined concerning a good deed done unto an impotent man, by what means this man is made whole; be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even in him doth this man stand before you whole. He is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is the head of the corner.”

If we have been arrested and locked up for healing a tramp, a beggar, and outcast, for a good deed, be it known unto you and to all the people of Israel, that in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom YE crucified, whom God raised from the dead even in him doth this man stand here before you whole.

That’s the most masculine piece of frenzy ever used in the world.

“And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

And when they heard it, they could say nothing against it; and they sent them out, and said:

“That indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it. But that it spread not further among the people, let us straightly threaten them, and that they speak henceforth to no man in this name.”

You can preach anything you want to , but don’t preach in THE NAME. The name has dynamite in it. The name will raise the dead, heal the sick, cast out devils. The Name: It is Jesus again on earth.

What are you going g to do with that kind of evidence? Did Jesus arise from the dead? Before Jesus died He said something that would forever brand Him as an impostor. He said, “After I am gone I am going to give you legal right to the use of my Name, and whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, I will do it.”

No other human being ever dared to talk like that. When a man was dead, he was dead. But here was a man that was going to do bigger things after He died than when He was alive, and He was going to give us the legal right to use His Name. “Just whisper my Name, and whatsoever you say, it will be done.” That was the most staggering thing that was ever said. That brands Jesus as the very Son of God or as an impostor.

What happened? Did His Name have power after He was dead? Jesus is the Son of God. I think I have made my case, haven’t I?

I believe, gentlemen, that this thing is only a little fragment out of the body of truth. I believe that if it were given to the world that 90% of our skepticism would cease to be.

I want to make a few deductions. What are the implications if Jesus Christ rose from the dead? What then? Here are three things. We know He is the Son of God. We know that “He died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and rose again for our justification. We know that every man who accepts Jesus Christ, God redeems that man, and we know that Romans 3:26 is true:

“That He might be righteous, and the righteousness of him who has faith in Jesus.” (margin)

God automatically, when you confess Jesus and accept Him as your Lord, becomes your righteousness. And the moment that God becomes your righteousness, that moment your standing is like the standing of the Son of God.

For years I hunted for this thing I have given you tonight. That sense of unfitness and unworthiness (or as they call it in psychology, that inferiority complex) swamped me. But then when I saw that God became my righteousness, I said, “I want you to know, Satan, that you have lost your case.” I know what I am now.

“Him that knew no sin he made to be sin for us; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

You, by the new birth, have become the righteousness of God, and God has become your righteousness. God could not make it any stronger than that.

I say to you reverently, friends, that if you have accepted Jesus Christ and are born again, you are standing in the presence of the great eternal Father God as Jesus is. You have just as much right to step into the presence of God Almighty’s presence as Jesus has. Don’t you see what that means? It means that Satan cannot stand before you any more, that he cannot stand before Jesus. Not only that, but, Jesus gave you the legal right to use His Name. And the first thing He tells you to do is to cast out demons. The first thing He told the twelve to do was cast out demons. When He sent the seventy out, He told them to cast out demons. When He gave the Great Commission He said, “They that believe shall cast out demons.” This is the first thing. Why?

The devil is the opposed, and as long as the devil reigns over the sinner, the sinner cannot do anything. It is your business to break his power. Can’t you see, sickness is called sin in the flesh and God has condemned sin in the flesh that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Your sickness has been condemned, indicted, and found guilty before the high court of God. And it has no more right in your body than I have a right to be in some other man’s house or store that is locked up. And if I am found there, I will be arrested. And that disease has no right in your body, and you have no right to leave it there, to sympathize with it, or to harbor it, or, console it. You are consoling the enemy of God that is under indictment and condemnation. It is a serious thing I am bringing, Gentlemen. Jesus Christ has absolutely redeemed you for He rose from the dead, and disease has no right in your body and no power to stay there. If you take sides with Jesus, then He has brought you to legal victory, to redemption, to your healing, and to .your Father’s fellowship. You have a right to stand in His courtroom and arrest the intruders of sin and sickness. You have a right to cast out devils, because you have sided with Jesus Christ the victorious one.

THE VICTORY OF THE RESURRECTION

Christianity through Jesus Christ stepped into the arena of world religions as a challenger. The Son of God, just as the ancient athlete did, threw down His gauntlet on the ground and challenged the religions of the world to take it up. Heaven’s challenge still stands. Sophisticated religions, uncertainties, philosophic illusions and delusions, have claimed the world’s interest, but Heaven’s challenge stands, just as vigorously today, as it ever did.

So long as the blessed Word of God lives in the world, so long shall that challenge endure. Other religions were old, whiskered and ancient religions. Zoroaster had lived, taught his “purification by fire” and worshipped the sun, the fire god. Zoroaster could conceive only one possibility, a purifying of the human soul, a process of fire cleansing. There could be no other. That was the conclusion of the ancient world.

Buddha followed about 500 BC., but with no better hope that Zoroaster. His ideal was oblivion, personality lost, individuality gone, merged into the great whole, without distinctive consciousness, vacuity.

Mohammed came at a later period, about 550 years after Jesus Christ. His heaven was a haven, the possibility of everlasting sensuality. Then, in modern days, Mormonism followed with its “spiritual marriages” and dream of eternal polygamy, all abominable to the Spirit of the Son of God and unlike Christianity as anything could be.

Into the muck and the mess and the darkness came the Son of God with the glory of holiness, with divine righteousness, with heavenly purity, with angelic estate, never ceasing consciousness, perpetuated individuality, life forevermore, resurrection from the dead, man’s enjoyment of God eternally, yourself a son of God, like the Son of God Himself, in His likeness immortalized.

Heaven stood aghast, earth stood aghast, and hell stood aghast, when Jesus Christ stepped into the arena. Could he accomplish the thing He talked about? Was there power in heaven or on earth to revolutionize the nature of man, change the darkness, take away sin and obliterate the night from his soul? Could the darkened soul be lightened from on high? Could the spirit of man, begotten in iniquity, be changed into loveliness, heavenliness and holiness? Could the personality of man be preserved? Were Christians going to die just like others die? Did He truly posses eternal life? Could He impart it to others? Was Jesus Christ a boaster, or a Savior?

Christianity did not come to the world to apologize for its existence or to beg for a place to live. It came as heaven’s champion: it has the champion soul. “It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15). That champion consciousness is in the soul of the Christian. Being born of God, he is champion of the Son of God and a demonstrator of His salvation. He is the champion of God. He cannot be anything else. “As He is, so are we in this world.”

In our day, we have almost come to the place where, the world is being taught to believe that the message of Christianity is morality. Be decent, don’t act like a pig, and keep the beast under control. That is about the message of modern Christianity. Jesus Christ never wasted His time establishing mere morality. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, declared IMMORTALITY to be the goal of Christianity, its attainment, the purpose of God for you and me.

“I will raise him up at the last day,” said Jesus. “I will give him eternal life.” “The dead in Christ shall rise first.”

No religion in the world except Christianity ever suggested resurrection its declared intent. Who in the world was ever bold enough to suggest a resurrection? What dying creature could? It was only the Son of God Himself, out of heaven, with the knowledge of immortality and eternal life that would dare to suggest such a climax for mankind.

If there were no other evidence of Jesus Christ’s eternal superiority but that, it would be sufficient. “Who only hath immortality.” “In Him was LIFE, and the LIFE was the light of men.” “He that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.” “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Marvelous Redeemer!

Christianity stands today, absolutely unique. No other religion of earth has our hope, or our consciousness, or our power. I fear sometimes that we moderns somehow have lost the spirit of the original Christianity. We have lost the smash of it. We have lost the overcoming power of it. We are begging the devil for a place in the world, apologizing for our faith in God, trying to conform our religion to the mind of the world.

Salvation is the transforming power of God. Jesus Christ looked upon the world, which was saturated with sin, sharpened in iniquity, and said that the task was not too great for Him.

The biggest contract in this universe was undertaken, back in the eternal ages, when one time, in the council of the Godhead, Jesus Christ, the responsible Creator, became the responsible Savior and settled the sin question, by offering Himself as the Savior of the world. He wrought our redemption. “He that believeth on Him that sent Me hath everlasting life.” (John 5:24)

His dying on the cross was the first incident in connection with our redemption, but it was not the conclusive proof. If Jesus had died on the cross and the process of salvation had ceased then, there would not be a redeemed sinner today.

David was sitting on the mountain side, one afternoon, watching his sheep, and his spirit traveled out into the regions of God. He began to observe, as a seer does, the things that were taking place; and he broke out shouting, “Thou has ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast received gifts for men, yea for the rebellious also that the Lord God might dwell among them.” (Psalm 68:18)

“Lift up your heads, oh, ye gates, and be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors, the King of Glory is coming in.” (Psalms 24:7)

That is the Christ of God; that is His salvation!

This was a battle of worlds. It was not a battle of earthly religions. It was the battle of every power of light and darkness in heaven and earth. Jesus Christ, the champion of righteousness and salvation, had to make good or, like the philosophers, pass into oblivion at the grave. Instead of being the life giver, He would have just been the profounder of another philosophy.

The resurrection morning came. Jesus, discussing His life had said, “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” (John 10:18)

He took it at His will. He commanded life! He lived and death became a captive. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was victor and there is none like Him in all the universe. He came out of the battle with the “keys of death and of hell.” (Revelation 1:18)

No other soul in heaven or on earth ever had such an experience. None other had ever challenged death. No other has ever taken death and hell captive. Jesus Christ stood unique in earth, in hell, and in heaven.

When Jesus came forth in the resurrection, something breathed and throbbed and pulsed in Him, that had never breathed or throbbed or pulsed before. It was the new, eternal life.

He used a new vocabulary. The ordinary language was not big enough. He said, “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.” Who else in the universe had ever experienced such a thing? None but the Son of God.

“All Power” language is Christian vocabulary only. Christianity came from the heart of the Glorified. Christianity is a heavenly triumph. Christianity is one hundred percent supernatural, that is, God possessing man.

Just as God breathed the breath of life into Adam, so Jesus Christ breathed upon His disciples. If He could breathe into them this heaven-born life, they would be heaven-born like Himself. If he could breath this consciousness of triumph into them, they would become triumphant also. If they could take the deathless life of Christ, they would become deathless likewise. “He breathed on them, and said unto them, ‘Receive ye the Holy Ghost’” (John 20:22)

In Peter’s pentecostal sermon, he gives a revelation that no other writer gives us. Peter’s broken heart was penetrative. He saw into the glory. He saw Jesus ascending to the throne of God, He saw the Almighty God receive Him at the throne. He observed what took place. He said, “Having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.”

He saw Him get the eternal saving marvel for universal distribution to all mankind. Right then, Jesus became the world’s Savior. The Savior of all mankind. He now possessed the saving grace, the Holy Spirit. God had fulfilled His promise. It was completed. His Savior had done it. It made Him heaven’s High Priest. He had qualified as High Priest of things eternal. It was His right, now, to pour out the Holy Spirit on every hungry heart that was ready to receive. They were baptized in the Holy Spirit. So may you be.

A TWO PART RESURRECTION

God offers a two part resurrection to every sinner. When a person accepts Jesus as his Savior, he will experience a spiritual resurrection. “And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins… Even when we are dead in sins… and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2;1, 5, & 6)

“It is Christ in you…” (Colossians 1:27)

We are “partakers of the Divine Nature…” (2 Peter 1:4)

Consider the result of being born into the family of God. It means a new Father, a new family blood line, a new captain, a new armor, a new physician, a new comforter, a new guide, a new teacher, a new truth.

It brings within, a new heart, a new mind, a new grace, a new hope, a new peace, a new joy, a new calmness, a new outlook on life, and a new purpose for living and being.

It is reflected in a new gentleness, a new kindness, a new cheerfulness, and a new love.

This new life brings with it a new power, a new protection, a new message, a new responsibility, a new rest, and a new shout of victory. We are a “new creation in Christ Jesus.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Even the physical body is quickened by the Spirit that dwells in us, that, we may have good health. (Romans 8:11)

The second part is the resurrection of the physical body. This is the mark of the prize of the high calling of God. (Philippians 3:14)

Paul realized that he needed to attain unto the resurrection. (vs. 11) It is the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:23) It will be a permanent condition. What will the resurrected body be like? In Luke 24:39, Jesus had his disciples handle Him and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones. That will be the composition of the resurrected body.

When will the resurrection take place?

“At the last trump,” for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible (the dead) must put on incorruption, and this mortal (those alive) must put on immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15:52, 53)

How long does it take to raise the dead and change the living? “In the twinkling of an eye.” (1 Corinthians 15:52)

THE SPIRIT OF GOD

by: Dr. John G. Lake

I want to read to you one of the best incidents in the Word of God. It is the story of Elijah upon Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18:17-40.

In every land, among every people, throughout all history, if there were a need of the demonstration of the power of God as it was in the days of Elijah, it is necessary now.

The people had turned away from God. They had forgotten that there was a God in Israel. They were trusting in other gods, just as the people are today. If I were to call you heathen, I suppose most people would be offended; but, I want to say that there is no more people with more gods than the average American.

Men are bowing down to the god of medicine. Men are bowing down to the god of popularity. Men are bowing down to this god and that god. Men, in many areas, afraid of the opinion of their neighbors as any heathen ever was, in any time in the world. There is practically no Christian, let alone a non-christian, who has the real stamina to stand forth and declare his absolute convictions concerning Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Much less, have men the necessary stamina to declare their convictions as to Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind.

That is the reason that the modern church has lost her touch with God and has gone into a sleep unto death, a sleep that can only end in spiritual death and the disintegration of the church as she stands, the only power that will revive the church in this land and the world is that which she will receive when she throws her heart open to God as the people of Israel did, and says, “Lord God, we have sinned.”

The sin she needs to repent of is not the committing or a lot of little acts, which men call sin, and that are the outgrowth of what is in the heart, but the thing that mankind needs to repent of is this: That they have denied the power of God. They have denied to mankind that the Christ of Israel is the Son of God and that He is the Almighty Savior. God’s call to the Christian churches today is to come forth from their hiding place, just as Elijah came forth, and meet the King. Declare the ground in which you meet the enemies of God, and meet them in the name of Jesus Christ.

The Christian church is absolutely, solely and entirely to blame for the whole existence or metaphysical associations which are covering the earth like a plague of lice. The Church is to blame, for if the Church of Jesus Christ for the last 50 or 100 years had declared to mankind in the power of the Spirit the Christ of Nazareth, as He is, there never would have come into existence the whole tribe of metaphysical societies.

The world today is being taken by the metaphysical associations to such an extent that they are bowing before the metaphysical laws and calling them God. That is human nature and not God.

The time has come, when the Christian church, has got to give a new demonstration to the world. If metaphysicians, through the operation of natural laws, can produce a certain character and degree of healing, then it is up to the Church of Jesus Christ, and the minister of the Son of God, to demonstrate that there is a power in the blood of Jesus Christ to save men and heal men unto the UTTERMOST, not half healed or half the people healed; but I pray and believe that God’s time has come for God’s challenge to mankind and the challenge of the Christian church to the world is to come on, and if it is God, let the FIRE FALL.

There was no bluffing with the old Israelite prophets. When the people came, they laid their sacrifices on the altar, and they did not put artificial fire under it. But instead, the soul went down before GOD. He lifted his heart to heaven, and when the fire came down and consumed the sacrifice, that was the evidence that the sacrifice was accepted.

The time has when God wants the fire to fall; and if you, my beloved brother and sister, will pay God’s price and make Christ’s consecration of yourself to God, we will see God’s fire fall. And it will not be destructive either, except that sin and selfishness and sickness will wither under that fire, while purity and life and holiness and character will stand forth purified and refined by the glory and the power of the God-fire that comes from heaven. God’s fire is creative of righteousness as well as destructive of sin.

Some years ago, when I opened my work in South Africa and the Lord had moved marvelously for about six months, a movement was put on foot to congregate a crowd of Indian Yogi. The Indian Yogi are a society of people who utterly give themselves up to a demonstration of metaphysical things. Brahman priests, Buddhist priests, Confucian priests, and all kinds of priests and hypnotists. After a time they said, “We would like to have a demonstration.” And I said, “Yes, I would like to have a demonstration also. Come on with your Yogi and your Buddhist and your Confucians and hypnotists. Let then show their God. Let them heal people if they can. Let it be in the public, and let it be done on the platform of my tabernacle or any other place large enough to accommodate the public. Then, when you have finished, we will call on the Christian’s God and see what He will do.”

Well, they came to the tabernacle to make the demonstration. One man, Professor Henderson, a professional hypnotist, was put forward. He said he was there to demonstrate what he could do through hypnotism. He brought with him as his subject a woman from Jermiston who had a locked hip, probably from pneumatics or hip disease. After he had tried and tried privately for months and publicly before the people, then I said, “Stand off.” Calling one of the brethren to pray with me, I said, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I command this hip to become unlocked.” Instantly she was healed and walked. I want to tell you more of what God did.

That was as far away as my faith reached, but God met me at that point. As I stood looking at her, I said to myself, “That is the way Jesus did it when He was on the earth and that is the way Jesus does it yet.” It was Jesus who did it.

Well, as I stood looking at her, suddenly something came upon my soul from heaven. It was the anointing of the Spirit of God. I understood then what the blessed old Book talked about when it spoke of the Spirit of the Lord coming upon Elijah, and the Spirit of the Lord coming upon Samson, etc.

Samson, under the power of the Spirit, took the gates of Gaza and carried them off. He took the jawbone of an ass and killed a thousand men with it. These were the things by which God endeavored to teach the world what the Spirit of the Lord is. Well, as I stood there, the Spirit fell upon me, not like the gentle dew of heaven but in power until my spirit towered up in such strength I did not know how to control it. In my heart I cried out, “Why God, what does it mean?” When all at once I discovered the Spirit going out in operation to the spirit of that hypnotist. I said, “Are you the man who has been hypnotizing this woman for two years and grafting her hard earned money? In the name of Jesus Christ you will never hypnotize anyone else.” Grasping him by the coat front, I struck him on the shoulder with my other hand, saying, “In the Name of the Son of God come out of him.” And it came out. That hypnotic demon was gone out of him. He never hypnotized again but earned an honest living.

God is not the God of the dead. He is the God of the living. And the desire in my soul is that in this city, God Almighty may raise up an altar unto the living God, not unto a dead God. Mankind needs an altar to the LIVING God, to the God that hears prayer, to the God that answers prayer, and the God that answers BY prayer. The time has come when God’s challenge has gone forth. God is saying, “If there is a Christian, let him pray. If there is a God, let him answer.” God will heal the soul every time you turn to Him and meet Him face to face.

In emphasizing this, the Lord Jesus Christ says to the world, “When ye pray, believe that ye receive and ye shall have.” That is what is the matter. Your blank check is not worth ten cents in your hands. Why? Because you do not believe God. Fill in your check, believe God, and it will come to pass.

The call of Elijah is the call of the present hour. If the Christ is the Christ, get your answer from Him. If Jesus is the Son of God with power on earth to forgive sins, then as Jesus put it, “Rise up and walk, that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins.”

Jesus Christ was reasonable enough to meet man’s reasoning and inquiries. And the minister of Jesus Christ who is afraid to walkout and believe his God and trust his God for results is no Christian at all. What does Christianity mean to the world? Is it a hope for the glory land away off in the future? Is that Christianity? Is it a hope that you are not going to fry in Hell all the days of your life? No! Christianity is the demonstration of the righteousness of God to the world.

So, brethren, God has given us something to do. He has given us a demonstration to make. If we do not make it, then we have no more right to the claims that we make of being sons of God that the other people. If God be God, serve Him! If Baal, then serve him!

www.standsure.net